Best Books on Reading and Understanding Horses
"A White Horse with a Groom, and Sheep in a Barn" past Edmund Bristow, c. 1807-76
Equus caballus owners and barn managers have ane frequent preoccupation that tends not to occur to the casual observer. Non simply how practise we brand the maximum efficient use of available space, but how exercise we fit the bachelor horses into that space?
It'south not every bit simple as "big horse in big stall, modest horse in small stall, line upwards in order of age/preparation/feeding regimen etc." Horses are herd animals, but they're also individuals. And individuals have distinct opinions near where they belong, and with whom. Hence, the fine art of horse arranging.
The nuts are relatively straightforward.Very big horses probably should go together, and very minor ones as well. Mares with babies usually desire their ain nursery area, away from boys and from mares without babies. You may also go along the youngsters of similar age together—weanlings, yearlings, etc.—as their smaller size and much college ratio of playtime to snooze time tin get them in trouble with the adults.
You're safest to keep genders split. Stallions go in their own space, one at a time, with at least a twelve-foot buffer zone in nearly places. Kind of like giant fighting bettas, and for the same reasons. At that place are farms that turn stallions out together, but either those are very young stallions, or in that location are no mares to set the hormones running.
Geldings and stallions are all-time kept divide. In that location are always exceptions, but a gelding volition not have the same preoccupations or priorities as a stallion. Nor, for the most part, will he take as much strength, and he tin't equal the ferocity of an enraged stallion.
Geldings and mares tin run together, but if there are enough of each on a subcontract, managers volition tend to keep them in single-gender groups. They have, again, different priorities, and different ways of expressing them. Sometimes those differences tin can cause physical harm.
As for stallions and mares, if one doesn't want ane'southward mare bred, one does not run her with the stallion. Fifty-fifty if she is to be bred, it's very much a judgment call as to whether she'due south turned out with the stallion, or is hand-bred or artificially inseminated. Live breeding can exist dangerous, and even experienced pairs may endure injury or worse.
In the wild, these matters settle themselves. You end upwardly, in most cases, with a band of mares guarded by a stallion (or two, if he allows a second, "dauphin" stallion to breed the mares he's too closely related to or non interested in) and led by a senior mare. There may likewise be a bachelor band of young and/or unattached males, some of whom will become roaming in search of mares of their ain to win or steal.
Within the mare band, in that location'south a distinct and at the same time constantly shifting hierarchy. The head mare has favorites whose access to nutrient she favors, and whom she allows to groom her. The rest of the mares move up and down the social calibration depending on age, mother'south condition, whether pregnant or nursing or neither. "Auntie" mares will babysit the youngsters, and the stallion may accept a turn with that, if he'southward non decorated guarding the herd from predators or marauding stallions, or breeding the mares (who point when they're ready; a successful herd stallion knows that the ladies are in charge).
In a domesticated setting, it's rare to find such an arrangement. Many breeding farms will run mare bands, merely not many will risk their valuable stallions in the rough and tumble of a herd. It's rare for a stallion to take a "bachelor band," either, whether with other stallions or a gelding or two.
For the most part, horse groupings in captivity are artificial units, created for the convenience of the humans who own or manage the horses, and limited by the amount of infinite available and the number of horses who have to share it. In some barns, that means no turnout at all, or turnout in tiny (every bit small as a dozen anxiety foursquare) paddocks or runs. Such horses must exist exercised by their owners or by barn staff, and are ridden or driven or worked from the ground daily, and otherwise kept shut away in their boxes.
Where at that place is space for turnout, the barn managing director will face similar challenges to a protocol officer setting upward seating for a diplomatic dinner, or a wedding planner arranging the tables for the reception. Who volition get along, who volition go to war and cause damage (which tin get expensive, not to mention the liability), who needs to be out all 24-hour interval and who tin deal with an hour or ii, who has to be alone or with just one buddy, and who wants or needs a bigger group. Tin we run mares with mares and geldings with geldings, or practise we just have enough infinite or time for a mixed grouping? And tin we put gelding X with gelding Y if it's just the two of them, merely will they fight over a mare if we turn her out with them?
Information technology's a fragile process, with not insignificant chances of injury or jailbreak if the barn managing director makes up the wrong combination. There ever seems to be i who has to be alone, either because he won't share space or considering he runs the other horses (and himself) ragged, and one who gets jealous if someone else pays attention to his BFF, and invariably there'southward a horse who chases all the other horses abroad from the gate when a human comes to become their own equus caballus to ride. If their equus caballus is the pasture bully, they're in luck, but if he'south not, they tin can spend one-half their scheduled riding time trying to catch their horse while those higher upward in the bureaucracy chase the equus caballus off.
It's an art. When a new horse comes in, it gets even more than so, as patterns change and horses shift position in the herd or the turnout rota. A herd that worked may turn dysfunctional, if for instance a new lead horse arrives and gets to work supplanting the sometime one, and the remainder of the group jockeys for position around the battling titans.
It's usually a good idea to keep the ascendant horses autonomously, and permit them have their own split up herds. If the barn manager is extremely fortunate, ane of them might actually prefer to be a second in command, in which case the arrival of a pb horse, after an initial flurry, tin result in a much more happy and relaxed number i turned number two.
How does this translate into writing? Call up in terms of warring nations and high-school cliques. That should requite you a handle on horse social relations, and an angle on your story that another writer might not have thought of.
Contention in the horse lines in your fantasy army, for example. Tension and suspense in your horse-subcontract romance, when the Incredibly Valuable New Mare gets put in the wrong group by an incompetent stablehand, and commotion ensues. Or (and this has really happened) the brand-new stallion gets put out with the geldings by sleepy farm hand who didn't get the memo and didn't bother to check for the extra equipment in the dark of the early on forenoon. Or the herd leader is an Evil Pony who opens gates and subverts fences, and lets the herd out to roam the neighborhood—with bonus points if he sneaks into the barn and lets the stallions out of their stalls. Fences down! Battles regal! Horses running wild everywhere, with humans in frantic pursuit! The possibilities are endless, and the plot bunnies (or should I say plot ponies) can multiply in all sorts of fascinating ways.
Judith Tarr's first novel, The Isle of Glass, appeared in 1985. Since then she'southward written novels and shorter works of historical fiction and historical fantasy and epic fantasy and space opera and contemporary fantasy, many of which have been reborn as ebooks. She has even written a primer for writers: Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right. She has won the Crawford Award, and been a finalist for the Globe Fantasy Award and the Locus Honour. She lives in Arizona with an assortment of cats, a blue-eyed dog, and a herd of Lipizzan horses.
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Source: https://www.tor.com/2020/12/14/writing-and-understanding-horses-the-fine-art-of-horse-arranging/
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